There are three primary “sub-practices” that comprise the practice of mystical contemplation: Presence, Absence, and Power. These three practices correspond with the Three Sacred Vows of a Christian mystic: Obedience, Poverty, and Chastity.
In order to attain mystical, or spiritual, at-one-ment with the Divine, or Supreme, Being, a disciple of the Way must master these three sub-practices and combine them into a single integral practice. This three-fold, integral combining constitutes the practice of true, or sacred, alchemy.
Plugged-in Presence, or Relationship, is simply whole-bodily intercourse with the whole, the totality of existence as it intersects your being. Feel yourself as your whole body and “press” your body against the empty space in front of you. “Embrace” the empty space and all that arises in it by being in direct relationship to it. As soon as you feel yourself apart from or retracting from this relationship, attempt to reassume the “postion” of at-one-ment with it. In my own case, I randomly enquire: “Avoiding Relationship?” and this instigates my return to the asana of Plugged-in Presence (Conscious Awareness + Oneness).
One can be in Relationship to not only the outer world, but also to one’s “inner world,” which (temporarily) dissolves when the force of one’s Plugged-in Presence penetrates it. When you practice Relationship, you can do so with your eyes open or closed.
Plugged-in Presence, or Relationship, when direct, immediate, and unobstructed, generates maximal consciousness-force. It create a palpable, even visceral, pressure. When this pressure is felt, one must yield to it by utterly letting go, by totally relaxing-releasing the bodymind. This letting go, or self-surrendering, is the practice of Absence, or in Christian mysticism term, Poverty.
